True. I only saw games vs Finns and Russians, and the Swedes were killing it in transition play, neutral zone dominance and controlled zone entries. And this without Holtz and Raymond.
However, no lucky bounces should have been needed and I agree with earlier poster that they took the puck to the net way too seldom. But, I don't see this as a result from lack of "power, grit etc", rather that they took an amazing amount of dumb shots instead of making smarter plays to create high-danger chances.
So, bad decision making in the offensive zone and a team with too low hockey sense - also manifested in that they to often looked for long tape-to-tape passes instead of higher-tempo cycling, drops or space plays. The Russians were much smarter in this sense and almost beat us in regular time despite being outshot 2:1 and outpossessed 60:40.
On top of that too many simple ("stupid") mistakes were made that were severely punished (puck in own net). This is not unusual as many ppg+ players on the club level in this age play with very thin margins and often rely on opponent's mistakes or their own physical superiority. When competition is upped these players suddenly tilt the ice the wrong way. Some will develop, round off the edges and smarten up, but for the vast majority this unfortunately is a ceiling.
In terms of "power and grit" I felt they clearly outpowered and outskated both the Finns and the Russians.
Goal tending was so-so (especially vs the Finns)
Almost 40 skaters have now dressed for Team-16 this season, very impressive breadth in 02's. And there are most likely another 50-75 that could make a team like this - not the least through superior hockey-IQ.
